First off, I have a tremendous respect for your franchise. I’m young enough to not remember my favorite team getting bludgeoned by the Big Red Machine, but old enough to remember what it was like to watch Eric Davis with complete awe … the Reds are a quality organization with a long, storied history. And I respect the heck out of you.

So this isn’t easy to write. I love the uncertainty of the playoffs, the surprises. The best part of the postseason is to find out who the Jeff Weaver or Mark Lemke is going to be. The randomness of it all is what keeps the baseball playoffs so danged interesting. I’m looking forward to watching it all develop.

But me and some of the other folks have been talking, and, well, we need you to lose.

His reasoning is sound. I mean, really, it is. Gotta go read it for it to truly make sense to you though.

Personally: I find the Reds a pretty likable bunch. But I do believe that most everyone is gonna be rooting for Pittsburgh tonight and I get it. I wish it was the Cardinals facing the Pirates now because they’re way easier to root against. But that’s not how it is, so we’re gonna have to just accept this.

But … if everyone is rooting for the Pirates, doesn’t that make the Reds the outcasts? And don’t prickly jerks like me tend to root for the outcasts? The hated? Does this not compel me to root for the Reds?

The Cardinals have always emphasized building from within. In the 2016-17 offseason, however, they may end up being one of the bigger free agent buyers. At least according to some informed speculation.

The Cardinals are already losing their first round pick due to the Fowler signing, so any other top free agent won’t cost them more than the money he’s owed. And as far as money goes, the Cardinals have a great deal of it, despite being a small market team. They have a billion dollar TV deal coming online and Matt Holliday and Jaime Garcia are off the payroll now. Spending big on a free agent or three would not cripple them or anything.

Encarnacion or Trumbo would be first baseman, which wold fly in the face of the Cards’ move of Matt Carpenter to first base (and, at least as far as Encarnacion goes, would fly in the face of good defense). Getting either of them would push Carpenter back to second, displacing Kolten Wong, or over to third, displacing Jhonny Peralta. If you’re going to do that, I’d say that Turner would make more sense, but what do I know?

Either way, the Cardinals may be entering a pretty interesting phase of their offseason now. And an unfamiliar one as, quite possibly, the top free agent buyer on the market.

There is literally nothing you could tell me that the incoming administration is considering which would shock me anymore. As such, I saw this story when I woke up this morning, blinked once, took a sip of coffee, closed the browser window and just went on with my morning, as desensitized as a wisdom tooth about to be yanked.

Rob Bradford of WEEI.com reports that Former Red Sox, Mets and Rangers manager Bobby Valentine is on a short-list of candidates for the job of United States Ambassador to Japan:

The 66-year-old, who currently serves as Sacred Heart University’s athletics director, has engaged in preliminary discussions with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team regarding the position.

Valentine managed the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Pacific League for six seasons, leading the team to a championship in 2005. He also knows the current prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, as both went to USC. Assuming championship teams meet the country’s leader in Japan like they do in the United States, Valentine has at least twice the amount of experience with top political leaders than does, say, Ned Yost, so that’s something.

The former manager, more importantly, is friends with Donald Trump’s brother, with the two of them going way back. Which, given how this transition is going, seems like a far more important set of qualifications than anything else on this list.